I bought MIL a gorgeous sewing box from Cath Kidston to put all her buttons/threads etc in. We have also bought her some cute buttons and pretty ribbons to go inside. When I say gorgeous, it's not my cup of tea but she was taken with it when we went shopping a while back so I secretly went back and got it for her! It is really roomy with lots of compartments, but CK have loads of knitting bits on the website.

I love knitting and I would really love some beautiful rosewood knitting needles. I think they are made by a company called Lantern Moon and you can get them from the Purlescence website. They are beautiful!

Theas - I'll confess to being frugal with knitting bags. I have 2 that i use - one had a shower curtain in it (in the same fabric) and is just a nice size for a single ball project and one had a duvet cover in it and is also made from the same fabric as the duvet cover, so whilst not waterproof like the shower curtain one, it's fab for keeping everything together in my backpack. The other oen that i use for socks is a small cosmetics bag that came with some bodyshop goodies in, years ago!

Does she have small children or roaming pets? If so then she will need project bags that can be easily closed and put out of reach. Also if she usually knits out if the house then a more compact bag is probably good.

a book of nice patterns. Lots are hideous and though there is lots of stuff on the internet for free, a high quality pattern book to flick through is lovely to sit down with at Xmas and plan the next year's knitting!

fossils ideas are lovely, for me I have a bag, and a basket, and a few boxes, but still you can't beat some lovely wool. I've just made a beautiful mohair shawl, and one of those pins woulld be lovely <wanders off scribbling another little note to santa>

I have that book, alarkaspree. It's fab, isn't it? My only disappointment is that the projects all use Cascade 220, which is expensive to buy for such tiny amounts. I'd use DK on smaller needles, but never have appropriate amounts of appropriately coloured DK lying around.